Da Bulls? Still da best

Bulls' guard Michael Jordan, right, passes the ball off under pressure from Magic center Shaquille O'Neal in the first quarter of their NBA game May 14, 1995, at the United Center in Chicago. (Vincent Laforet / AFP/Getty Images)

The only thing we like more than a good debate is resolving one: The 1995-96 Chicago Bulls are the best NBA team of all time.

Swish.

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But we're not just about pretty shots here. We believe in playing defense, too, in this case protecting the Bulls' legacy in the face of a challenge by the rising Golden State Warriors.

On Wednesday night the Warriors, the league's defending champs, won their last game of the season to go 73-9 overall. It's a remarkable achievement — a regular-season NBA record, one victory better than the peak performance of a certain Chicago dynasty led by a certain Chicago icon. Those '95-96 Bulls went 72-10.

So, the Warriors: Best team ever? Better than those Bulls? Nope. Not yet, anyway.

It's hard to imagine a team any greater than Michael Jordan's Bulls that distant season. Two teams have won 69 (the '96-97 Bulls and the '71-72 Los Angeles Lakers), but winning 70 or more games over the course of a bruising year? You'd have to be nearly perfect, like Mike, and dominant as a team, at home and on the road, offensively and defensively. Like the Bulls, with Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman and company. Chicago's worst month of play that season was dreary February: They went 11-3. Not exactly a slump. They didn't lose a game at home until April.

The Bulls that year were taking the first step toward their second threepeat, with Jordan in his first full season on the team since his temporary retirement. He won his eighth scoring title and was the MVP in the regular season and the Finals. He was a superstar of ferocious intensity leading a team of extraordinary ability, coached by Phil Jackson, best ever at the art of meshing a talented whole. The Bulls beat Seattle to take the championship, and took the crown the next two years to complete Michael Jordan's double threepeat.

These Warriors are amazing too. Stephen Curry, the reigning MVP, is the best player on the planet right now. He hits three-point shots from downtown, uptown and the next county over. Curry's got his Pippen, too, burly Draymond Green, who excels at all aspects of the game. Try to shut down Curry, and Green or Klay Thompson burns you.

As for which team is better, well, the Warriors have one championship to the Bulls dynasty's six, so we'll see about that. But which roster — the '95-96 Bulls or this year's Warriors — would win in a showdown? It's a legitimate question. It's also problematic because they played in different eras with different rules.

Steve Kerr may be in the best position to judge, but he wouldn't bite when ESPN asked him about it earlier in the season. Kerr, the Warriors coach, was also a member of the '95-96 Bulls team. Laughing over the hypothetical nature of the question, he addressed it this way: As a complete hypothetical, as in, if the game were played on Pluto, Kerr said: "Well, if it takes place on Pluto, then I believe it would hinge on a step-back Steph Curry 3 over Michael Jordan at the buzzer. And we'll never know if it goes in or not."